An Evening with Meredith Monk

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference Culture Influencing Community Change

Proceedings from the Conference November 5-7, 2001 Mohonk Mountain House New Paltz, New York

I want to thank you for all the support you’ve given to people. Another thing that it can do is to offer us artists over the years, and for you to know how a place where people can experience fundamental much we appreciate that support. energies that we don’t necessarily have words for. Our mind has what I call “discursive mind,” which This is going to be like a little three-act play. The first is the narrator in our mind looking at something or is that I’m going to talk, which is what I was asked to experiencing something, and then talking about it in do, so I will. Then I thought I would sing one or two our minds. The real experience of art is when that things for you, to give you a little idea about the style. part of the mind can relax and can rest, and you’re And then Ching and I are going to have you sing with experiencing in a very direct way the very funda- us. Or we are going to try. mental energies for which we don’t have words, that we don’t articulate except in the terms of mystery I wanted to speak of some very personal things or discovery. about my process as an artist, and my response to September 11th. I wasn’t in New York, but my loft What’s kept me going over the years are these is about ten blocks above the World Trade Center. moments of discovery and, in a sense, curiosity is There were some young dancers who were subletting what keeps me going. Being able to tolerate hanging my loft, so of course I was first very worried that they out in the unknown, which again I think is really were all right. Having not been there, the distance something that’s not totally comfortable. Certainly from the event puts you into a mode of contempla- not comfortable. But it’s something that keeps you tion and throws everything in your life upside-down. going, because if you knew what you were going to For that day, I did a lot of questioning about being do, there wouldn’t be a reason to do the process. That an artist in this world, and what relevance does that would be more a way of making a product, that we have in the world? Could I be more helpful in a more know what’s going to happen before it starts. direct way? For me, what gives me satisfaction in the process At the end of that day of thinking and meditating of making art is throwing myself to the edge of the and contemplating, I again came back to the idea that cliff, not really knowing what it’s going to be. As when we do something we really love and we’ve painful as it is, to not know what it’s going to be and devoted our lives to, and we share that with other tolerate that. people, that’s actually really the most fundamental thing that we can do to make the world better and In terms of grantmaking, that’s been something that’s to make some kind of sense of insight and wisdom been very challenging for me over the years. I don’t in the world. I’ve been working about thirty-seven know what the title of my piece is going to be in years. There are times in my life where, it’s a kind advance. I don’t know what my tech crew is going of nonverbal thing and not something that I’m that to be. I don’t know necessarily how many people are conscious of, but I take something like a vow, and going to be in it. The process of making the work I’ve done that a few times in my life. It’s not that is what makes me be able to find these things out, I say, “Now, today I’m taking a vow.” It’s just, some- and that’s the beauty of working. That’s something to thing happens that I know I’m making this commit- really think about. The value of that sense of mystery ment and this devotion. That was something that and the sense of being able to not make the same happened after that day as well, with a real sense of shirt over and over again, but each time to start anew. surety. That is really indeed what we have to share That’s what gives us the depth of what we’re trying as artists, and is really important for the world that to convey or to share with other people. That’s a we live in. really important thing.

I think that it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity, Another aspect I wanted to tell you about is this idea for one thing, to make a connection. That’s very of collaboration or negotiation in making art. I’ve just important, to connect. That’s something that art can finished a piece calledMercy which is a collaboration do in a very deep way. Another thing that it can with a visual artist, Ann Hamilton, who represented do is to offer a way of listening to each other and the United States in the Venice Biennale two years affirming our diversity, and really listening deeply to ago. It’s the first time that I’ve ever collaborated with each other and the differences between us. Another another artist right from the beginning, conceptually. thing is to offer beauty and wisdom and insight Usually I do the visual work in my own pieces, but

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change 3 An Evening with Meredith Monk this was in a sense letting go of some of that to allow really has both of the strengths of us standing side- for another person’s sensibility. by-side and affirming both of our strengths.

What was very moving about the process was how Actually, the first image is that Ann reaches across, hard it was for us, what a challenge it was. I write and she has a light. She developed a little tiny video my own work, I write the music, I do the movement camera that’s in my mouth. This was incredibly layer, I work with a visual layer, I usually do my own uncomfortable. So it’s in my mouth, and when I open video or film, and I weave together these elements my mouth, you actually can see her. So when I sing, into a whole, a world. Each piece is like a world. as I open my mouth, on the screen behind us, you Ann in her work does exactly the same thing. She has literally see the image of Ann. You see mostly the sound, environment, obviously the visual aspect. So, light that she’s shining, but you see her face a little who was exactly going to do what, when the two of bit in there. So you see her, from my mouth’s point us came together? of view. I think that maybe, in a nutshell, that’s what the piece is about. The original impulse was that we had incredible respect for each other, and a trust that neither of us But in fact, what the piece is about is compassion and would embarrass the other person, that we would be mercy, or lack of. We premiered it last July – two able to come out with something that we both felt months before September 11th – and it was kind of good about. The challenge was to have both sensibili- chillingly prescient of what was going to happen. ties be totally whole and have total integrity, and yet we had to figure out where to let go. Where do The piece is a meditation on help and harm, human we actually let the other person have that energy help and harm. The centerpiece of the structure is that they need? It’s a sense of renunciation on a these three solos that were based on people who certain level. have a sense of personal courage. One of them was a doctor in England in the 1960s who had come from It was a process of two people negotiating and, even an Oxford education, very upper class, and ended though it was very, very difficult at times, we were up giving that all up to live in a village of working- trying to understand each other’s way of working. class people, and became, in a sense, the priest, the That was incredibly fascinating, that her process is healer, the listener. We had the idea that in medicine very different from mine. She reads a lot before she now there’s not so much listening, you know really does her work. It’s very verbal, her process. Mine is listening, to the whole person. Everybody would very nonverbal, even though I read a lot all the time. come to him with any kind of problem that they But my way of working is nonverbal. Yet, what Ann had. That was the idea of healing, which is, again, is trying to do is a very nonverbal thing. something that I believe very strongly that art has the capacity to do: to be a healing influence on the It was very, very fascinating and, in a sense, kind society, on the individual. That was that character. of like the democratic process. It’s sort of like the values of democracy, because we also were able to The second one was based on a woman during argue. I think something about democracy is that it the Second World War in southern France, who, also allows for argument. It allows for not agreeing along with her husband and the entire village, saved on everything. Then yet, how do you still trust this about six thousand young…mostly children, Jewish thing, and how do you still keep on nurturing this children, people that were going to be taken away. thing, that’s going to be something that neither of us They hid them in different ways. The thing that was would have done by ourselves? That’s another thing, the most moving about it was that it was taken for how do we make something that neither of us would granted that it was part of human nature. It wasn’t, do ourselves? “Oh, we’re so courageous and we’ve done such a big thing.” No, that was just naturellement. That’s “natu- With Mercy, the subtext of the whole piece is in the rally.” Entrez means, “If you knock on my door, you first image of the piece, where you just see the two are welcome.” They were at risk of being killed at any of us sitting across from each other at a table. There’s time, the entire village. And the Germans, because a sense that, here are two people that still have been of this kind of peaceful, really nonviolent kind of willing to push through all the obstacles and diffi- behavior of this village – the gentleness – actually, culty and come out with a harmonious whole which

4 Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change An Evening with Meredith Monk left them alone. It was one of the miracles during So I wrote that piece for the AIDS epidemic as that time. an inspiration.

Somehow the sense of basic goodness was what I just came back last night from Ireland and singing inspired us so much, so that there is a scene where the New York Requiem has a totally different meaning there are refugees that come from the audience, and now. It’s really a requiem for the city. That has also they come up on the stage, and Katie Geissinger, been the kind of response that people have felt and who plays this character, is facing them, and she have given from singing this piece. It’s been incred- also has another one of these little video cameras on ibly deep. her dress. You see them coming towards her, and then you see their face on the screen. We usually try Right now, I feel incredibly privileged to be an to work with members from the community where artist; that we have a way of expressing some of we’re performing, so we have people coming from all this un-namable event that has happened, or this over the world as the refugees. It was a World War II un-namable feeling. It also affirmed the idea of live character, but really we’re thinking much more about performance or live art that cannot be replaced by the a basic situation of kindness. So that’s the second one. computer, and cannot be replaced by movies particularly. Sometimes movies have that kind of energy, but The third one is played by Ching Gonzalez, as a the live energy, what it has is a kind of figure eight. prisoner based on Parmoedya Ananta Toer, who is an It goes from the performer back to the audience, back Indonesian writer who’s still alive in Jakarta now. He to the performer, and it’s this thing that has an open- was imprisoned by the Dutch for twelve years, and heartedness that you really don’t feel in many other then by the Sukarno government. He was not allowed places. It has the vulnerability of a performer, that to have pencil and paper, and basically wanted to we can fall down at any time. There are many, many write a tetralogy of novels. He memorized what he ways that we can be very, very vulnerable. We don’t wanted to write. None of his writings were allowed have that often in the world we live in now, that to be read. He told the other prisoners each chapter as frailty and ephemerality of communication. he wrote it in his mind, and memorized four books, and then when he finally got out of prison, he wrote That’s something that just comes back over and over the books down. Again, just this idea of following again, how valuable that is in the world that we’re vision. That scene was really about lack of mercy living in. I hope that this will really make it, that and deprivation. all of you can have the courage to go back to your communities and go back to your organizations and That’s a centerpiece of the whole piece. Basically, realize that we really have a chance now to affirm the the piece is about compassion and healing. It had power of art. It’s something that was really getting a very strong impact in July. But since then, we’ve lost in the culture at large. It’s so important for people performed it in a few different places such as Ohio of all ages. and New London, Connecticut. The kind of impact that this piece has had, people are sobbing when I hope this is helpful for you, some of the very they come backstage. The sense that we’re getting – specific things that have happened and that I’ve which is something that you can only hope for, it’s been working on. I can get a little bit more general an aspiration, but it’s certainly nothing that you have about things. But I wanted to be very personal and control over as an artist; you just try to do what your very specific. vision is to the best of your ability. I’m taken aback at I’ve been doing a Buddhist practice for many years, just how much people are so hungry to have a place and a part of that practice has to do with a shrine, the where their feelings can rest, where their feelings can making of a shrine or an altar. I’ve been working with exist. I think that this provides that. the idea of shrine since the early nineties. I did an I’ve also been singing the New York Requiem, which is installation piece called Volcano Songs where I made a piece that I wrote in the early nineties for the tenor a shrine that has some video elements. It’s a kind Thomas Bogdan. He’s very active in the gay commu- of environment where I feel like it gets the audience nity in New York, and at that time was constantly into a very quiet place, and it has resonance of some- taking people to the hospital, or singing at funerals. thing that they’re going to see. It’s a preparation of a change of mindset, you could say, or a way of letting go of what has happened in the day and all

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change 5 An Evening with Meredith Monk the stresses, before they go into the piece. This idea Two of them did pieces that had leaves in them, and of shrine has been something that I’ve been thinking had to do with nature. The last one did a piece where about a lot. they brought us outside, and they had little tiny children’s shoes. They would put one pair of shoes on In Ireland, I was teaching two days of workshops. the ground, and then they would pour water around Finally, I was able to articulate, “How could I present it, and then they would take a step. They kept on this as a workshop problem to the people in Ireland?” going with these little shoes, so it was like a proces- One of the things that was a catalyst was seeing how, sion of little shoes. Everybody started getting a little in New York, people are making shrines or altars or teary-eyed, because it had the resonance about the memorials in front of firehouses and police stations. future, and about the future of all of us on the earth. The whole city is a big art work now of people just We sang together, and they had something around contributing, making offerings. a tree. It was a complicated structure. But there was something that was so utterly beautiful, and had so The thing of making offering, for example, in the much metaphor of what we’re all thinking now, and Balinese culture, every day you make an offering our fears and our hopes. as a way of giving thanks, being grateful, and acknowledging the larger energies and being very, So there was such a simple kind of problem, but this very present. The aspect of everybody in New York was something that went back into the community, adding to these offerings was something that was and would be passed on. What I said to them is very inspiring for me. that, just by doing that action, it’s like in the Tibetan culture, you see those prayer flags, and you see them In my workshop in Ireland, I had four groups with fluttering in New York, and that’s calledlung-ta , or five or six people in each group, and they had to “wind horse.” The prayers that are written on those make some kind of a shrine or altar. It could have flags are blowing in the wind. The idea is that the been that the whole room was a shrine. It doesn’t energy of those prayers will go throughout the whole have to be a shelf or something like that. Just make a world, just by the wind. sacred space. Make an altar of some kind, or a shrine. Then they had to write a piece of music together that I felt that by doing those shrines in a class they were would be the vocal part of it, that either they could sending out this incredible energy into the world. It teach all of us, or they would do as a presentation. was so real, what they were doing. It transcended Then they had to make some kind of ritual for this any kind of artificiality. What they were doing was environment and this offering. I told them that it sending energy out into the world. could be to God, or to Buddha, or to a higher power, but it could also be to drinking a cup of coffee in a That’s what I think that we can do as artists. That’s conscious way, or daily life, or nature. Or it could be what we want to do as artists. We want to share our a memorial, or it could be a memory, or something hearts and our love, and share it with other human like that. beings, and give them some sense of comfort, some sense of peace, some sense of something to ponder. It So each of these groups did this, and it was so doesn’t have to be that all art is peaceful. The kind of incredibly moving. One group did a kind of shelf, conflict that some art delineates is very important to and then you could see out the window, so you our world. It really can be whatever it needs to be, but saw the sun. They had brought photographs of their I think that it has a sense of truth and honesty and it family. They had brought photographs of themselves really helps all of us, too, by having some moments dancing. There was a visual artist in that group that of being present. It eliminates the kind of conceptual took pictures of everybody’s feet, or their hands, or framework that we all live under, the tyranny of that, their faces, and put them all over the floor. So that and lets us actually just experience in a really present became the body of the entire class. So the rest of way, our existence and affirmation of our existence. the class came in. They taught us a song. It was completely beautiful. What was so beautiful about I think that as grantmakers, the most wonderful gift that one, each person brought in what they wanted to that you can give to art is to actually trust us as bring in. Everybody listened to each other, and it was artists, as individual artists. That’s something that a whole that was bigger than all of them. That was has, in some ways in the last year, gone in a little bit very, very special. of a different direction. There has been a lot of trust of

6 Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change An Evening with Meredith Monk institutions, but I think what’s really, really important I can, and tell you about a few other things. Some of is to affirm, to trust the work itself. It is what we you have given us a lot of help and I’d like to talk devote our lives to, the vision and the work itself. about that a little bit. Let’s sing first and talk later. There can only be good coming out of that. I urge you to trust your artists and know that we’re devoted to So, this piece is called Quarry Weave #2. You have what we do. That’s important for all of you to know. the melody, the people that read music, but you can throw the paper in the air if you want to. We’ll teach So now I’m going to sing a little bit. I’ve been it to you, so you don’t have to worry about it, about exploring the voice for many, many years, and that’s reading music or not reading music. Originally it was the center of my work. I believe the voice is an instru- part of a piece called Quarry that I made in 1976. It ment that transcends culture, and that’s why I rarely was actually the requiem part of Quarry, at the end of use text in my work, and can perform all over the this piece, which was about World War II. All of us world and people respond to it pretty directly. It’s a sang this thing, and we walked in these formations. very eloquent instrument, and I’ve been very lucky to Even the audience sometimes joined us. There were be able to work with it all these years, and to be a part photographs of people from World War II, and it was of music, and let the voices come through. a kind of a memorial section.

I thought I would sing just two little songs to give A few years ago, in 1996, the Union Theological you an idea of this craziness. The first one is called Seminary asked me if I would make a service for Porch, which is a very early piece of mine, and basi- a conference of the American Guild of Organists. cally it has a melody which repeats, but with each Where do you make performance that’s between stanza. I’m working with different kinds of qualities performance and worship, really? How do we make of the voice. You’ll hear the way that it keeps on performances that are like meditative experiences? transforming. So I’ll do a short version of it. It’s something that I’ve been working on for the last many, many years. I’ve been trying to find these [sings] [applause] different ways of finding forms that fall between the cracks of these two things. Thank you. Now I’d like to just do one other short one. It’s from a song cycle called Light Songs. The last I was delighted that they asked me to do this, song that I sang was called Porch, and it comes from and I designed a nonsectarian service that had little a song cycle called Song from the Hill, which I wrote texts from different spiritual traditions. There was in New Mexico. So all of these songs have a feeling something from Hildegard von Bingen, who was a of that landscape. But this cycle is called Light Songs, medieval Christian abbess. There was an African rain and I think of these pieces as duets for solo voice. So song. There was a crazy wisdom Buddhist, also a there’s always more than one thing going on at the woman teacher, very, very wonderful text. There was same time. So this song is called “Click Song #1.” a section from Rumi. There was something from Martin Buber. There was a Native American young [sings] [applause] woman’s initiation prayer. These texts were woven through choral music of mine, from over the years, Thank you. I’ll do one more, which is called Wa-lie-oh, and at a certain point, the whole thing kind of split and it’s also from Song from the Hill. And then we’re open and we taught this round to the congregation. going to teach you something. So that’s what we’re going to do with you.

[sings] So this is what we’re going to do. We’ll sing it for you first, and then we’ll just go over the melody. You Thank you. don’t have to read this. This is just if people are into reading music, then you can keep it as a souvenir. But [applause] basically, we’ll teach you this, and then we’ll see if we can get a four-part canon going here. So, first we’re Now we’d like to teach you a canon, and I’ll tell you going to sing the melody for you. And we’ll do it over a little bit about the background of this. Then we’ll and over and over again. You don’t have to worry; do a question and answer, because I’d love to hear you don’t have to rush. It goes like this. what you’re thinking and answer you in any way that

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change 7 An Evening with Meredith Monk

[sings] It sounds really simple, but that third part, do you hear that little syncopated thing? That’s a little synco- That’s it. We’re just going to take it one little phrase pated thing. So listen again. at a time, and then you can just do that over and over again. Don’t even worry if you’re tone-deaf or Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, anything; it doesn’t matter. It feels really nice to sing I heard a bird sing. together. I’m telling you, it really does. So this is for Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, all of our pleasure, and the pleasure of the room. So I heard a bird sing. we’ll start the first phrase. It goes: Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, I heard a bird sing. [sings] Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, I heard a bird sing. One of the things that we always say about singing together as an ensemble or group is that, if you Stand up and just get your feet going. Everybody just only hear yourself, then you’re not singing it right. get that pulse. That’s really important. Now, if we Because the beauty of singing in a group is hearing took the chairs away, we could have a dance and the other people. That’s the really good part of it. everything here on this one. So first let’s get the pulse.

[singing] [applause] [singing]

Okay, so now we’re in a democracy. We can vote. Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, Would you like to learn another one, or would you I heard a bird sing. like to have a question and answer? You have the choice. Although you’re going to get both either way, Now listen again, “I heard a bird sing, a-dee-da-da but what are you ready for right now? Another song? sing.” All right. [singing] Okay, this is fun. This is a song that when it gets going, we start to get something like African poly- Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, rhythms, even though the words are not African, but I heard a bird sing. the rhythmic thing is. First of all, you’ve got to get Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, this pulse going. We’ll sing it for you first. I heard a bird sing.

[singing] [Everyone singing] Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, I heard a bird sing. Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, Okay, do you have any questions? I heard a bird sing. Audience: I have never heard you sing before, and We’ll go a little higher. when you started singing, immediately it came to mind the story you told about the man who couldn’t [singing] write, who didn’t have the paper and pen and had to keep everything in his head for years, and then Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, four books came out. It made me curious about I heard a bird sing. your process, because you’re not dealing with text Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, language, how are you memorizing? Are you I heard a bird sing. recording your sounds? How are you developing Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, your songs? I heard a bird sing. Cuckoo, as I went walking on a May morning, Monk: In terms of making the songs, or in terms of I heard a bird sing. passing them on?

8 Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change An Evening with Meredith Monk

Audience: Making them. and yet within that, I always can play. So that’s why I can sing them over and over again and there’s always Monk: Right now, I’m struggling a lot with this more to find in them. idea of publishing, because I’m actually publishing music with Boosey & Hawkes. But it’s weird, because Audience: How is the popular acceptance of your I’ve been always very anti-paper on a certain level, work and sales of your recordings? because I feel that I come more from the oral tradition in music, which is an age-old tradition. Passing it Monk: The thing about my records is that they are on physically. kind of timeless in a certain way, and that’s another thing I’ve always been interested in, in my work, That’s pretty much how I work. I work very viscer- is not so much being popular in the sense of one ally and I don’t think of it so much as memorization. year, and then the next year it’s gone, but somehow It’s in my voice. My voice is part of my body. It’s doing work that, ten years, twenty years, it still holds not really like memory, like I’m looking at a page and up. I’ve always been more interested in the kind of I’m memorizing from the page. It’s just, as I make the timelessness of art. piece, it becomes really more part of me, and so it’s not that same process. Dolman Music, which is the first record that I did for ECM in the early ‘80s, is still selling really well. It’s a For example, there’s a piece that we do called steady thing. One of the things about being an artist “Hocket” from Facing North. “Hocket” is a form is a lot of endurance. To just keep on going. And then where we make a melody, and each person has one sometimes, “Oh! Meredith Monk! Have you seen her note. We’re throwing these notes back and forth. I work? It’s so great!” And then “Ugh, she’s not so remember that I made the piece for another person, a interesting.” And then, “Oh, she’s so great!” and then, duet with Robert Ian, who’s a person who worked in “Ugh, she’s not interesting,” “Oh, she’s so great!” my ensemble for many years, and I wanted to make a “Ugh, she’s not so interesting.” But I’m just plodding piece for the two of us. I had written out this melody, along, just marching along doing my work. It doesn’t and we tried to memorize it by looking at it. We were really make much difference one way or the other, working at it for months. We’d look at each other, you know. “We are really good singers, aren’t we? We can’t get this!” Then I realized the body is actually faster than Audience: [inaudible] the mind. In fact, to sing that thing, we were going so fast, if we have any thought come into our mind, we Monk: This is the thing about the video camera lose it. We absolutely fall apart. in my mouth, for example. The fact that the video camera was in my mouth is kind of the same isola- So it’s kind of the same thing in meditation. You’re tion that I can do with singing the melody and the aware of thought actually being a lot slower. So clicks, because the melody is coming from back here. in some ways, I save one step that way. People The clicks are coming on the top of my mouth. I’ve don’t have to memorize. They learn it from an explored the voice and the way to produce the voice oral tradition. for many, many years. What happens is that you’re able to isolate. It doesn’t seem that hard for me, but Audience: Are the songs changing every time? Are that’s just because I’m very used to isolating the back your songs changing every time you perform? of my throat, the back of my palate, the soft palate, the hard palate, the lips, and the tongue, and the air Monk: The first song,Porch , which I’ve sung since and the different ways that the air comes through. the late sixties, the form would be pretty much the same, but I sing it totally differently. That’s But with the video camera, I can only sing behind the beauty with these forms, they’re very rigorous. my palate and my lips. Otherwise, it gets stuck, like They’re very, very precise. The kind of precision or I can’t do anything with my palate because this thing intricacy of the music – sometimes the music sounds is in my mouth. So that’s been very interesting to very simple, but it’s incredibly intricate. Within that, see how to work with that. Then I realize that’s there’s always room to be in the moment, and there’s pretty much the same that you need to do with the always room to play with the material. So you would click song. absolutely know that the forms are exactly the same,

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change 9 An Evening with Meredith Monk

Audience: So, I have a technical question and a that. After I graduated from Sarah Lawrence, where follow-up question. The technical question is, do you I had been both in the voice and the dance depart- have perfect pitch? ments, I started vocalizing one day, and realized that the voice could be like the spine. It could be flexible. Monk: No, I don’t. I have very good relative It could have colors within it. It could have textures pitch, but I don’t have perfect pitch. Do you have within it. It could have characters within it. It could perfect pitch? have gender. It could have age, landscape. You know, it was like one of those flashes that change your life. Audience: No, I wish I did. I want to know how it From that point on, I decided that I would find my affected you. own vocabulary built on my own voice.

Monk: Perfect pitch is a pretty amazing thing. One As a dancer I’d had a lot of physical limitations, so I of the people in our Ensemble, Allison Sniffin, has had to find a kind of idiosyncratic style for my own perfect pitch. But there’s also a down side to it. body. I could apply that same principle to my voice, but I had a more virtuosic voice to start out with, My mother was a radio singer. She was the original coming from a singer’s family. Muriel Cigar on radio, and Shaffer Beer, and Chiquita Banana. So, she was one of these people that could I spent years and years just working with my own literally take a piece of music and read down voice, and pulling out the range, and working with anything. Time is money in that field. There was one the glottal break, and finding all the things that are woman, Lois Winter, who had perfect pitch. If they within the voice, and within my voice. I realized were in a recording session or on radio where the that, when people would come and hear my things, conductor wanted to transpose down a half-step, this and they’d say, “You know, that sounds a little bit poor woman had to go into the other room and liter- like Balkan music” or “That one sounds like African ally write the whole thing out in another key. Every- music” or “This sounds like this or that.” I’d say, you body else, “Oh, you want it down a half-step? Fine.” know, I never have really listened to these musics. Everybody adjusts. But she, because she had perfect Then I realized it was really that, within each of our pitch, she couldn’t. She had to literally write the voices, we have the world. We have the whole world whole score over. So that has a disadvantage. in our voices. As soon as you are not trying to get But I have pretty clear relative pitch. Pretty good the pear-shaped tone, but you’re trying to find what relative pitch. the physical thing of the voice is, and what is in the human voice, you are definitely going to find these Audience: [inaudible] things that transcend culture. The glottal break is in the North Carolina holler, Monk: Sure, definitely. This is a wonderful question and it’s in yodeling. It’s in Balkan music, and it’s in that I’m very happy to answer. A lot of people hear African music. Some kind of Chinese opera has that my music, and they say, “Did you go to Africa? Did glottal break. You’re going to find that sound exists you go to Bali? Did you go here, did you go there? through all these cultures. As a composer, I find that Did you take this material and somehow work it into sound and then I make my music from that. Some your music?” people will have a little bit of a memory of a culture, I came both from music and dance backgrounds. I’m another culture. a fourth-generation singer in my family. That was my Maybe I’m completely naïve, but my belief is that first language, to sing. Then I had an eye problem, music transcends culture, and that we can go all so my mother took me to Dalcroze Eurythmics, over the world, and it goes right to the heart. It tran- which is a way of learning music through movement. scends language. In that way, we have traveled all That’s how I started doing some movement, because over the world, and we have had a response, very I was incredibly uncoordinated. So that’s how the direct response. movement thing started. For me, non-European cultures, as an overall sort One thing about the dance tradition is that there’s a of spiritual inspiration, keep me going. I’ve tried tradition of finding a vocabulary for yourself built on to explain that only in Western European tradition, your own body, and then making movement from

10 Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change An Evening with Meredith Monk there was the Rationalist and Newton, and all this Thank you for that. idea of mind over matter, man over nature, the dualism, you know. “I think, therefore I am,” that Audience: I’m not quite sure how to ask this Cartesian thing. That was a Western European idea question, but I’m just wondering about the seeming of man being more powerful than nature, or human contradiction between calling your work coming beings being more powerful than nature. That’s when from an oral tradition, now working with a publisher everything started splitting off. Singers are over here, who’s trying to codify this. And also, what is the dancers are over here, theater is over here, writing legacy? What happens to your work when you stop is over here. But if you think about African culture, performing your work? Because it’s so unique to Asian culture, you think about also the accounts of your exploration of the voice and your body, and all ancient performance forms, all of those things are of that? totally integrated. There’s no problem. Monk: I’m struggling with that, you know, having One of the problems I’ve had in my work is that my a very hard struggle with it. I’m struggling with work has two main branches. One is the music, the mortality. [sings] “Dum, da dum dum.” It’s coming work for the voice, and my deep exploration of the up. It’s coming up. I fought for years, and said, “I voice. The other is these kinds of interdisciplinary don’t want to do it. Forget it.” or combined kind of forms, which include music of voice, movement, images, sometimes little shards of One of the things that I’ve been trying to do at the narrative or theater. same time is to feel that I’m a generous person. From the time I did Atlas, which is an opera that I did for Everybody has such a hard time with me. What Houston Grand Opera, I had people from all over category does that person belong in? You’ve got to the world in the cast. Some of them came from the decide on one! You just have to! What critic is going classical tradition. They were all game to move and to come from the newspaper? They don’t know who to try different things with the voice. They all had to send. It’s thrown at me as if it’s a weakness, but careers of their own. I think it’s my strength. That’s when I get a lot of courage to say, in Africa, you could have a master In the really early days, the people in my ensemble drummer, a singer, a dancer, and a storyteller in one started working with me as very young people, and person. And in Asia, the more things that are within so they knew my vocabulary. They knew my way of one body, the higher you are as an artist. thinking about things. But this was a group of people that already had their own careers. Some of them I was talking to a friend of mine who’s Balinese, and asked me if they could sing my music. Of course since she said, “The more things that one person does, the they had worked with me, I could teach it to them better they are.” So it’s only in the Western European directly. But it was more this idea, and not all the tradition that there’s a problem with it. In the world results were to my liking, exactly, but it’s a thing of that we’re living in now, not only in terms of culture, trying to let go of control a little bit, that somehow it but also in terms of the complexity of the world, should be for anybody that wants to have it. the way that perceptions are coming so quickly, we cannot be literal like that anymore, and we cannot The way I’ve been working with Boosey & Hawkes be linear like that anymore. In fact, it’s much more is, I’ve been doing it just piece by piece. Like these appropriate to make forms where all these things solos, I don’t think I could ever put on a score. But are combined and we’re reflecting and mirroring the some of the choral pieces can be scored with a lot of complexity and the liveliness of the culture that we explanation. It’s taken a year and a half to do these live in rather than having to do A equals B and B two little one-minute pieces on paper. Like the Panda equals C, and we have to put everything in these little Chant, this Panda [sings] “Ba da ba day,” this Panda boxes, and that’s it. thing. I could teach that in half an hour to a group, but on paper it took about a year and a half to figure I have to say from the bottom of my heart that that out how to do it. has always given me a lot of courage. It really has. They’re really amazing. They’ve taken the time. What [applause] we’ve done with the Panda Chant was a kind of one-page map of the piece, which would be a lot easier to learn that way. Then we did a transcription

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change 11 An Evening with Meredith Monk of one performance, so you could actually see it in it’s about that. But really, what it’s about is these a linear way. Then I have extensive program notes amazing human beings. As a template of behavior, of how to perform it, and then we have a CD with the way that it’s so generous, the way that people two different performances of it. One with my group perform and they pull for each other if somebody’s in the studio, so you can hear the vocal thing really having troubles. close, and one in St. Mark’s Church, where you can hear a larger group doing it. Then we have a video- To be in my work, you have to let your ego go. tape available for them to practice, because this is a Even me, as a person that’s making the work, as a very complicated thing where we’re stamping, and performer, I’m just another member of the ensemble. we’re doing rhythms against the singing. It’s a poly- It takes a lot of courage for them. How would you rhythmic kind of thing. like to be in a rehearsal where the person who’s doing the piece doesn’t know what the end of the piece is That’s so far what I’ve done with Boosey. They know going to be? that I’m very, very skeptical, and they’re just taking it one piece at a time. The next thing we’ll do with They have their commitment to following along this them, which again, could be done in scoring, is my process, which sometimes is really, really hard. My piano pieces, which are actually simpler. I’m just friend Tom Bogdan gave me this big blue hippo- taking it one little step at a time. I know that there are potamus when I was making Atlas, and I said, “This things of my repertoire that will just die with me, for is what making Atlas is like. It’s like trying to give sure, particularly the solo things. birth to this big blue hippopotamus.” They hang in there. They give so much support. So Audience: [inaudible] that takes a lot of courage. In the Ensemble everybody shines. It’s not the instant gratification you Monk: Yeah. I have the recordings. You know, I have get from a Broadway show or something like that, twelve or thirteen recordings. The recording studio where you’re strutting your stuff. We’re all putting is another whole thing. If I hear some of these record- ourselves into the larger whole. That’s also what’s ings, I go, “Oh, I could do it a whole lot better than very satisfying, I think. But Ching could tell you more that!” That’s the one that’s going to be there forever! about the Ensemble. You’re in the studio, and this microphone is looking at you, and you’re going, “You’ve got to do it the best Audience: [inaudible] that you ever can,” and if you have that in your mind, you never do it well. You’re too careful, you’re too Monk: Well, we’ve known each other’s work for a this, you’re too that. Some of the recordings I feel are long time. Of all the people in the visual arts world, really good, and that’s the way that people can also I feel the closest to her work. So we started talking use that as an aid, you know, to learn the music. So about this. She always says that she’s been very influ- it’s something I’m struggling with a lot. It’s really a enced by my work, that she heard me sing in the hard struggle. early ‘80s when she was still a student. Something about the directness of the singing, she felt that if she Audience: [inaudible] could make visual work that has that kind of directness, that she would have been happy. So she had Monk: With the Ensemble? Usually because of the stated that somewhere that she had been influenced complexity of a group form, the parameters are a little by my work, so I knew that. smaller. Ching is a good person to ask. Some of them are really precise, and have to be, and then there are We just started talking about what we would want to some things where we can play within it. We’ve been do. It was very challenging for both of us, because we singing together for so long that we know where the work in very different ways, and we communicate in other people are. very different ways. For instance, if I say “structure,” that means something very different to me than it That’s one other thing I just wanted to say about does to her. She thinks of it visually; I think of it art in general. I realize as the years have been going in time. I come from a time art; she doesn’t. And on, that the real content of the work is the people, yet, she’s very interested in the performance compo- and the kind of radiance of these people. So I can nents. I think it has impacted both of us in a really say, I’m making this piece about Atlas, it’s about this, strong way.

12 Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change An Evening with Meredith Monk

Since we just finished the piece, I can’t tell you exactly how. I feel like we’re both now taking into ourselves how it has impacted. But we’re also even going to try to work on another piece, maybe a little duet piece. Mercy has the Ensemble. It has Ching, it has Katie Geissinger, Theo Bleckmann, Lanny Harrison, and Allison Sniffin playing multi instruments, and John Hollenbeck playing multi instruments. So we do have a cast there other than Ann and me. And Ann is also performing in the piece, too, which is very interesting.

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change 13

THIS IS ONE OF A SERIES OF PROCEEDINGS FROM THE GIA 2001 CONFERENCE, CULTURE INFLUENCING COMMUNITY CHANGE. Transcriptions of proceedings from GIA’s 2001 conference, Culture Influencing Community Change, are published as individual papers. These proceedings are also available on GIA’s Web site at www.giarts.org.

ORDER FORM Please indicate the number of copies requested for each individual sessions. Each GIA member organization may request one set of proceedings at no cost. For additional copies, please include a postage and handling fee of $5.00 per session.

____ Creative Support for Individual Artists Preconference ____ Opening Event: An Evening with Meredith Monk ____ Keynote Address: Kenneth Prewitt ____ Keynote Address: Pepón Osorio ____ After September 11: Dealing with a New Landscape for Arts and Culture (Monday session)

____ Beyond “Art:” A Community Perspective ____ Member Report: Crossroads: Art and Religion in American Life ____ The Big Picture: Planning for the Future of Culture in Communities ____ Stabilizing Community-Based Arts Institutions ____ Universities and Communities Mentoring Young Artists ____ Young and Engaged: Youth in Community Arts Programs ____ Digital Workshop ____ Built to Last: Linking Communities of Grantees ____ Member Report: What We’ve Learned about Arts Marketing Collaboratives ____ Time and Space: Residencies and Retreats for Individual Artists ____ After September 11: Grantmakers in the Arts and the Future of Our Grantees (Wednesday session)

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